Asti Ristorante & Bar, Branford

Pan-seared shrimp and scallops with mussels, tomato and white wine served over wilted kale, with garlic and olive oil, is a Paleo dish served at Asti Ristorante & Bar in Branford.

Pan-seared shrimp and scallops with mussels, tomato and white wine served over wilted kale, with garlic and olive oil, is a Paleo dish served at Asti Ristorante & Bar in Branford. (Cloe Poisson, Hartford Courant)

Perhaps no single word quite gets your attention like "Incoming!" — especially on the battlefield. Even in my field, I know that reviewer and readers alike would prefer to learn about the work of an incoming, rather than outgoing, chef. So when I visited Asti Ristorante & Bar in Branford, it seemed fortuitous timing that well-liked opening chef Frank Sacco had been replaced by Johnson & Wales graduate Ted DeCrosta.

Asti opened about a year ago in the former Mango's space, which is set back from Branford's Main Street by way of an attractive courtyard. Owner Joe Mazzarella changed little about the layout, preserving the separation of dining room and bar area but tucking the kitchen out of sight. In warm weather, there's nice en plein air dining on the courtyard patio. Many customers elect to dine in the lounge.

Mazzarella intended the restaurant to be family friendly, pricing entrées from the mid-teens upward. Drinks also are accessibly, rather than punitively, priced. Happy hour specials are even greater bargains. More than 50 international wines are offered by the bottle ($23-$160), 20 by the glass ($6-$10), with a Stemmari Pinot Noir, Sicily, Italy ($6) proving quite nice for its modest price.

I dined only once at Asti before the chef change, enjoying its popular Wednesday lady's night three-course, prix-fixe menu ($24). DeCrosta will apparently be tweaking the menu, but plans no wholesale changes. For review purposes, I paid Asti two visits, one on a slower night when DeCrosta left the kitchen in the hands of a protégé, and one on a busier night when he was present. The results were good on both occasions.

On the slow night, the fort was being held down by a chef, a bartender and a hostess-cum-waitress-cum-food-runner-cum-dessert-plater named Jackie. Lean and mean. Everything ran surprisingly smoothly, the trio exhibiting admirable teamwork. We were brought nice house-cured olives and slices of Italian bread, which we dipped in good EVOO we poured from a cruet on our table. We were underway.

Asti in Branford

Cloe Poisson, Hartford Courant

A Porterhouse veal chop Lyonaisse is served with potatos and grilled asparsgus with a port wine reduction, topped with crispy potato frizzle is one of the menu offers at Asti Ristorante & Bar in Branford.

A Porterhouse veal chop Lyonaisse is served with potatos and grilled asparsgus with a port wine reduction, topped with crispy potato frizzle is one of the menu offers at Asti Ristorante & Bar in Branford. (Cloe Poisson, Hartford Courant)

Dandy little house salads came with our entrées, driving home what good value Asti provides. I recommend them with the housemade balsamic dressing and added Gorgonzola (there may be a small charge). Consequently, I never tried any of the proper salads.

Our entrées were terrific. One was the tilapia francese ($18), generous tilapia fillets dipped in egg and sautéed in a delightful white wine, Meyer lemon and capers sauce, and then garnished with grilled pencil asparagus and roasted red peppers. Although I don't like my steaks covered (a.k.a. concealed), a 15-ounce New York strip ($25) in a lovely port wine demi-glace served over roasted potatoes was a perfectly cooked, grill-marked thing of beauty once I moved aside the delicious wild mushrooms and shallots topping it. A brownie sundae ($5.50), the brownies homemade with that perfect crunchiness yielding to chewiness, provided desired closure. We looked forward to our return visit — not always the case in this line of work.

On the busier night, we began by trying all three available soups ($5/$8). Again underscoring the value theme, Asti's idea of a cup of soup is most restaurants' idea of a bowl. Garnished with a crisp fried basil leaf, the pasta e fagioli was vibrant and hearty, with tomato, ditalini, cannellini beans, Savoy cabbage and bits of carrot in a chicken broth with rendered prosciutto. Big housemade croutons topped an also-hearty split pea flavored with shreds of smoked ham. But our favorite, garnished with fresh basil, was a creamy tomato that was more tomatoey than creamy, as we happen to prefer, allowing one to enjoy its bright tomato flavor.

From the mains, orecchiette pasta ($16) with prosciutto, baby peas, shallot and fresh basil smothered in a delicate pink cream sauce and topped with Pecorino Romano was absolutely scrumptious. Fanned out like playing cards around a pile of spinach and roasted peppers, pink slices of seared-rare, sesame-crusted ahi tuna ($20) in a porcini-infused balsamic glaze were as pretty as they were delicious. But a request for veal Marsala ($20), not carried on the menu but offered as an occasional special, produced the best rendition we'd had in years, with toothsome shiitake and button mushrooms and prosciutto topping tender scallops of veal surrounding a central pyre of twisted noodles. A slice of delicate limoncello cake ($5.50) makes a lovely finish.

Another "tweener" that's neither fully upscale nor casual, Asti is a great example of a new breed of restaurants that, in our post-recession economy, offers generous servings of high-quality food at affordable prices.